Two Distinct Mechanisms of Suppression in Human Vision

By Yury Petrov, Matteo Carandini, Suzanne P. McKee. 2005

196 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Cortical visual neurons in the cat and monkey are inhibited by stimuli surrounding their receptive fields (surround suppression) or presented within their receptive fields (cross-orientation or overlay suppression). We show that human contrast sensitivity is similarly affected by two distinct suppression mechanisms. In agreement with the animal studies, human surround suppression is tightly tuned to the orientation and spatial frequency of the test, unlike overlay suppression. Using a double-masking paradigm, we also show that in humans, overlay suppression precedes surround suppression in the processing sequence. Surprisingly, we find that, unlike overlay suppression, surround suppression is only strong in the periphery (>1° eccentricity). This result argues for a new functional distinction between foveal and peripheral operations.

Subfields: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience, Cognitive Neuroscience

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Citations in the corpus

Normalization as a canonical neural computation (2011, background): “Surround suppression, as measured behaviourally, depends on whether the orientations and spatial frequencies of target and surround are matche”
Temporal properties of surround suppression in cat primary visual cortex (2007, background): “This view seems also true in humans ~Petrov et al., 2005! where these phenomena were studied perceptually and found to have markedly different properties.”
Peripheral vision and pattern recognition: a review. (2011, background): “5 Surround suppression A further mechanism discussed in the context of crowding is that of surround suppression (Petrov et al., 2005; Petrov & McKee, 2006; Petrov & Popple, 2007; Petrov, Popple, & McKee, 2007).”
Crowding--an essential bottleneck for object recognition: a mini-review. (2008, background): “Using a doublemasking paradigm, Petrov, Carandini, and McKee (2005) showed that in humans, overlay suppression precedes surround suppression in the processing sequence, and unlike overlay suppression, surround suppression is only strong in the periphery (>1 eccentricity).”